probably be just about only regarding the Star Trek party, because it was the best that can be imagined and then multiplied by two hundred twenty-four point three. (It seems Spock’s statistics have been rubbing off on me)

Here is a collection of the quotes and memories and everything else regarding the time from the end of school yesterday to the present time and date. I have numbered them, though merely for the presentation values as they are not purposely in chronological order.

[1]School let out. Rachel, Daniel, and I walked to the library and Giant as per usual. On the way, Spock and I bickered, also as per usual. Scotty remained amused and was the first to walk through the automatic doors of Giant.

[2]At Giant, we bought drinks and then were on our way to the logical destination: the library. It was there that we found the word search of the week. Can you possibly guess the INGENIUS theme for this week? Allow me to enlighten you: the word search was a STAR TREK WORD SEARCH. Can you imagine how thrilled we were to find that this was so? I was able to complete mine before Spock completed his, winning the unofficial contest, but there were no hard feelings between us.

[3]After a long while talking and looking at books and all else, Spock and I sat down and played truth or dare (in character, of course) and Scotty went to sleep.

[4]Once it was the proper time, Rachel and I were brought to her house by her mother. On the way there, we spoke of (I almost typed “Spock of”) the incident that occurred during Rachel’s drama class that involved Truckman roleplaying Spock. The horror did not end there, but I am trying to forget that now, so let us move on…

[5]We got right to work watching Star Trek, though first we recapped with a quick viewing of DJ Spock, among other videos. Over the course of the sleepover, we watched around the same amount of episodes as last time, six or seven or eight, and we also watched the second and third Star Trek movies, The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock. Both were fantastic though, as Rachel and I agreed, it was strange to see the characters over a decade older and with much better graphics. It was also disconcerting that they did not wear the original uniforms, instead opting for red attire.

[6]After dinner (broccoli chicken casserole) we went for a walk for me to take pictures for my Photography class, as the first roll of film didn’t come out. The assignment is to shoot a roll during night using certain settings. So, anyway, we began walking down the pathway which leads to a playground right off of Rachel’s neighborhood (as we were planning to take some pictures there). However, we soon heard children laughing at the playground, and not wishing to be interrupted and such, we decided to try and spy on them to see if they showed any signs of leaving soon. We attempted to look through the great mass of trees and shrubbery that was blocking our view of the playground. Still, we could not see anything through the trees, so we thought nothing more of it and began to walk down the path into a trail that goes through the woods, a creek and such. As we came to this opening into the woods not far from the playground, however, we saw that it was pitch-black in those woods, and, frightened because of the darkness, we both ran back up the hill and proceeded to go to the playground after all. Perhaps the children would be gone. We neared the playground and walked over to the fence area close to the woods and, much to our surprise, there was nobody at the playground and nobody anywhere around us either. There was no way the children could have run away that quickly, as there is a large open area running into two other neighborhoods that is perfectly visible from the playground. And, yet, there was no one there, no signs of anybody either. We were beginning to become more scared, and it was getting darker, but still we took a few pictures at the playground, swang on the swings, and looked upside-down at the houses behind the swings. It looked bizarre, as if we were in an alternate universe, trapped in a snow globe without the glittery confetti around us. Bored of the playground and also becoming more apprehensive at the shivery feelings surrounding us, we walked on our way to the middle school, which is very close to Rachel’s house. After all, there were still more pictures to be taken. So, we walked on, and I noticed a strange orange-yellow glare in the camera lens, but still, there were pictures to be taken. We crossed the street to get to the school parking lot and began walking aimlessly around the sidewalk on the side of the school, to the back of the school. On our way there, we saw three or four small frogs hopping, a sure sign of rain or something else soon to be amiss. There is a long series of steps behind the school, and we walked up these steps and recalled the yearbook signing parties we had there during middle school. As we neared the top of the steps, we could see the back windows and doors of the cafeteria, where church meetings are said to be held after school. As we glanced into the doors and windows, we saw many people there, presumably for such a meeting. It seemed these people were looking at us, so we turned and began to hurry back down the stairs. Rachel jokingly warned me not to look back, as the victims in horror movies often do so before meeting their untimely deaths. Still, like an idiotic horror movie character, I turned around on my way down the stairs. There were now large sheets covering the doors and windows, so that nobody and nothing could be seen through them. Even the tall bits of the doors were covered. It was terrifying and for a moment I thought I imagined it, and yet the sheets were there, and Rachel and I were running down the long series of stairs, trying not to scream. I told Rachel what had happened and we began to really freak out, thinking about the laughing children and the sheets on the doors and windows and everything else. All the while, it was getting darker and beginning to rain, the kind of rain that is not soft and comforting but instead spiky, like bullets covering the earth. I quickly took pictures of Rachel and the surrounding areas, sincerely hoping that apparitions would not be visible when I develop these pictures. I’m still scared to death that there will be a hand reaching out in the picture, or a faded face of a child in one of the pictures from the playground. On our way walking back to Rachel’s house, there was a strange form of lightning, lightning that was blue and purple, lighting up the sky like something nuclear and dangerous. We rushed back to her house as quickly as we could.

[7]Thank goodness the rest of the day was not terrifying in the least, though the images still haunted our thoughts. We got to her house and ate chocolate covered almonds and continued with our Star Trek episodes and such, and then at around three in the morning we were barely able to keep our eyes opened and so attempted to go to sleep. Naturally, once we lay down we were unable to go to sleep, and thus decided to put on boring YouTube videos to help us rest. First we tried “Are you Popular,” an informational video made in 1947. One would think that would tire us, but instead it made us more alert, and now I keep thinking of Wally saying, “Boy, what a headache!” and Carolyn asking enthusiastically if she can help with the props for a school play or something. After that unsuccessful attempt to sleep, we watched some videos that show some girl putting on makeup. Often these videos were ten minutes long, and yet they were hilarious and srved to make us even MORE awake and giggly and such. We watched videos of Mozart’s laugh from the movie Amadeus. Then, for the rest of the day, we kept laughing like Mozart.

[8]Eventually, after a very long while when it was after 5 am, we got to sleep. I woke up at around 11:30 this morning and for the rest of the time we watched Star Trek and more YouTube videos, as expected, and had cornflakes for breakfast and tofu soup for lunch (we pretended it was Vulcan soup).

-I delivered passes to various classes with Alexandra during Biology (unintended rhyme, no joke)
-I was assigned to be in charge of the “sound booth” for the preschool graduation
-I found out that many, many Star Trek episodes are also on Hulu and YouTube
-I am watching more of The Man in the Moon right now
-I am nearly done with The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit; it’s really good
-I was just able to summarize my day in less than one hundred words
-I saw the pictures at the art showcase and they were fantastic
-Goodbye for now

(I just summarized my day and finished it in exactly one hundred words [that was planned])

I could type for hours and still not even touch on how absolutely lovely today was. Firstly, though, I’m going to touch on the not-so-lovely part of today, which happened this evening not too long ago.

Okay, so Jake often sort of pretends to punch people. This type of ‘punching’ is up close to one’s face, too close for comfort. I’m always sure he’s going to miss and accidentally punch me for real, and that is exactly what happened. Clara was (still kind of is) crying and nearly hyperventilating. Her nose might be broken. I’ve never been that scared after somebody gets hurt.

Now, I’m not going to say another word about the incident because I don’t want to keep remembering it over and over again. I saw it happen.

On to the holiday festivities (speaking of which, we still need to light the menorah):

Most of my family woke up bright and early this morning, or at least before 9 am, and then we of course proceeded to wake those who were not yet up, consisting of Jake and Lydia. Then it was time for the obligatory kids “walking to the presents” picture. We stand in a line in the hallway, oldest in the back to the youngest up front, and my mother takes a picture. Shockingly, she only took one this year. I guess she’s starting to realize that we don’t like standing still for oodles of photos in order to get the “right one.”

Next, of course, it was present time. I ended up getting so many presents over the course of the day that I couldn’t believe it. I was under the impression that this Christmas would be much smaller, but it sure seemed grander than ever. Maybe I received to many because the things on my list were all relatively low in price. Either way, here is some of what I received and some pictures from the websites to go along with them. I am pleased as punch right now.

^Lovely earphones, I think, but my mother hates them. Says they’re creepy and that she’s noticed that a lot of my presents this year are disturbing.

^It’s a music player! It’s a phone! Could it be…both? Yes indeed, and it was free after having my old, beloved phone for two years. It’s real spiffy.

^These are the most adorable little miniatures! Super detailed and I love them!

^All four are thigh high socks from welovecolors in gold, royal, emerald, and red (funny how they’re the four “basic” colors, eh?). My knee highs are always falling down (to my knees, which makes sense, but still) so I thought I’d get some taller ones.

^ Oh my goodness, that stuff is amazing! With my luck, of course, there was nothing really sour in the house to try it with, but we did have some clementines. I ate like, three of those. They tasted like candy! Delicious, healthy candy! Marvelous, it was.

^It just looks like a pile of floating books, but it’s actually a hidden bookshelf. Awesome stuff.

^That was my gift from Santa. It actually broke shortly after being opened, so we’ll be returning it for a non-broken one. It knits i-cord.

^It’s an ornament and much cuter in person. That is the best picture I can find.

^Micro Spy Remote– a universal television remote that’s tiny.

^On a t-shirt

^AMAZING! I saw it in theaters and loved it and I’ve watched it already. Absolutely fabulous. Highly recommended.

^The milk chocolate ones. It’s a tradition for my dad and me to each get a box of them.

Oh, and I also received some The Office related things, sticky notes and pens and such, including a stress ball of Dwight’s head.

Aaaand for Secret Santa it turns out Emma had me. She gave me an amazing purple umbrella and mini peach rings. I had Clara and gave her purple eyeliner and gold eyeliner. Last night I also received pajamas with lovely little triangular trees all over them.

I am going to type this post up in unequal parts, simply because everybody awesome I have ever heard of has once divided something up into parts, including Laura who I saw doing this most recently and reminded me of this in doing this, so I kinda most recently stole that idea from her. Anyway, here goes nothing.

Part One: What Lydia Just Did
Lydia has recently become increasingly adorable, what with talking a lot more than she used to. All of a sudden, she understands what we are saying and can actually hold a conversation pretty well. All of a sudden, she can make up her own songs! All of a sudden, she has unique ideas! All of a sudden, we discovered that she is stubborn as a mule! Hooray!

An example of her cuteness: Just a second ago, she was wearing her chicken costume and singing/playing a song about tater tots on her xylophone. The lyrics were basically, “Tater tots, tater tots, tater tots, tater tots,” to the tune of “Spiderman.”

Part Two: Ice Cream
I knew it all along, but I really really like ice cream. I just thought I would let you all know in case you were for some reason wondering.

I think we may be going out for ice cream tonight, which is great because, as I just mentioned, I love ice cream.

Part Three: Wednesday Club
I bet every single one of you knew this was coming. Today was of course Wednesday Club, and it was a blast.

Things we did:
[1]Went on a scavenger hunt at Giant. We did not get through even half of it, but it was great fun. We stopped mid-item for the next thing on the list-
[2]We had an ice cream party! We bought miniature ice creams from Giant and then went to various benches and tables outside to eat them. They came with tiny spoons that were awesome.
[3]We played Extreme Guess Who! Tyler Oakley of the YouTube channel ‘tyleroakley’ brought this idea to our lives, but Laura thought of playing it at Wednesday Club. It is basically the same thing as regular Guess Who except with personality traits. You come up with traits and things about your person and then the other person asks questions. For example, “Does your person like the summer?” or “Is your person satisfied with his or her job?” It gets pretty subjective, as Laura mentioned, but it is amazingly fun.
[4]We played Hide and Seek! We only played it once, but it was a lot of fun and therefore still gets mentioned here. Have you ever played Hide and Seek in a library? Well, if you have not then you most definitely should.
[5]The ‘In My Pants’ with book titles game. Provided, it was only played for a few minutes between Daniel and I while we waited for Laura and Valerie to arrive, but it was fun. One of the best? Strange Brew… in my pants.

Part Four: My Summer Moods
Summer is still rather boring, but I have still been happy for pretty much the entire summer so far. Still, I will be very excited when school starts up again.

Speaking of school, I received my report card in the mail today! I received a ninety-four on my math final, which was pretty exciting. My GPA is currently 3.75… it was brought down because of my Chemistry grade, of course… rotten Chemistry…

After Wednesday Clubs, though, I am always in a better mood. It lasts for basically the entire night until I become bored out of my mind once again. Then I go to bed.

Part Five: An Idea That Just Occurred to Me
Okay, how cool would it be to write a book that is purposely full of clichés? I mean, as many as can be fit in… there are so many clichés in life, and if a book were purposely (rather than accidentally) jam-packed with them then that would make my life.

Part Six: Knitting
I knit more on my scarf and I think Emma and I are actually for real going to have the knitting sleepover tonight. Last night I was ditched while Emma and Clara had a non-knitting sleepover.

I cannot wait until this scarf is done with and I can start on a new, simpler, quicker project.

The end.

Gee, now I really feel like I copied Laura, seeing as my parts post ended up being six parts just like hers. Sorry, Laura. You are a genius.

Well, what do you know, it is Wednesday again already. The year is flying by like there is no tomorrow.

I went to Giant twice today: once during the Wednesday Club where I purchased dragon fruit vitamin water. It was delicious. The other time was after, when my father called me and said he was at the Giant, which is right next to the library where we were, and that I should walk over there. I did so, after depositing my backpack, bag, and bag stuffed with books in the car. I checked out twenty-five books, you know. Instead of returning them in two weeks, I am probably going to take the full three weeks to read them. During the second time to Giant, I bought four bottles of SoBe Life Water, because I love flavored waters very much. These flavored waters are made with vitamins and herbs, which is pretty jokes. I bought it in Blackberry Grape, Pomegranate Cherry, Orange Tangerine, and Passionfruit Citrus. I drank some of the Orange Tangerine flavor and it is quite delicious.

Oh yeah, before returning my books I finished reading Hitler Youth. It was as depressing as one would expect it to be.

I continued my one hundred percent streak on vocabulary quizzes and we received the new list of words. They are simpler than ever before.

The first book I started on, which I am already about halfway through with, is titled Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and is all about mnemonic devices. There are a few for the names of the presidents and I am going to be paying very close attention (and reading, and rereading) those ones.

Unfortunately, Valerie was not able to come to the Wednesday Club. Well, she was going to come late, but she was not able to follow Danya’s hand-drawn map to the library and ended up getting lost and just walking back to the school, where she had band practice soon anyway.

The word of the day is craven, meaning ‘cowardly.’ The holidays, which are devastatingly similar to yesterday’s, are School Nurses Day and National Tourism Day.

The color of the day is a shade of black (grey?) called Davy’s grey and is a greeny grey color.

Hey, did you know that the ‘dragon fruit’ is an actual fruit? I just looked it up.

Oh man, I also just looked up whether it is legal to drive golf carts on streets and, unfortunately, it is not. Where the speed limit is under thirty-five, it is legal, and neighborhoods may be okay- however, I do not really live in a neighborhood. It is more of a highway. There goes my dream of owning a forest green golf cart and driving it to the library whenever I want.

Oh bah, I felt so tired this morning. Luckily I no longer was once Wednesday Club arrived.

My second day of no contractions failed even more so than yesterday, the first. I think it would be best to try my hardest over the weekend so that I am used to it come Monday and school and all.

My good friend Laura, creator of storiesfromahat.wordpress.com, has started updating again after a brief hiatus. Her stories are extremely good- very funny and full of excellent lines- you really should read them.

Well, that is all I have to say. I am off to either read or get started on a wooly scarf I am knitting, made up of many stripes of various lovely colors. Plus I need to take out the trash and recycling and bring the laundry up.

Hurray, the word of the day is ‘brio,’ meaning vigor or liveliness. Oh, and the number of the day is one hundred twenty-six. The holidays are Beverage Day, National Teacher’s Day, National Tourist Appreciation Day, National Nurses Day, and No Diet Day. Upon Wallie’s choice, the color of the day is a shade of green, today’s shade of which is one titled ‘grey asparagus,’ which is, evidently, a mixture of grey and the color ‘asparagus.’ Interesting, indeed.

Hurrah, I finished Sickened. It was inspiring. I have now moved onto Spud, which is also an excellent read. I am finished with that and am going to start and finish Hitler Youth before tomorrow after school, when the Wednesday Club will meet.

Huzzah, I have started (term used loosely) on the brainstorming of characters for my short story in English. Sometimes I jot down loose interpretations of the main characters, their names, and traits. In this case, I may or may not change the characters and plot completely before I decide on one. During NaNoWriMo, I wrote and rewrote the plot at least a half dozen times, sometimes getting even so far as to write a few thousand words before changing everything. In the end, I settled on the tale of Oliver Caspian, who hacks into computers of major companies and sends them spam upon the payment of one of their competitors for a living, if that makes even an ounce of sense. The point is, here are the main three characters for my current to-be-written short story:

Archibald “Archie” Lincoln- a rather sarcastic boy

Cabin “Cab” Everett- enthusiastic and talkative

Peter Scotts- the cliché extremely shy and smart reader

I am planning on Archie being the narrator of the story. At the beginning, I would have him explain how people always judge him on his last name, either thinking he is a stuck-up, rich, snobbish boy (based on his full name) or some sort of country bumpkin (based on his nickname).

Anyway, Archie, Cab, and Peter, all of whom are around seven or eight years old, meet up while exploring the woods behind the boys’ houses and quickly become friends. The highlight of the story is when the trio manages to build a tree house together.

So, yup, there is my first idea for a short story. I particularly like these characters and, even if I do not end up using them in this assignment, will most likely write them into something else, perhaps a ten page or so story in my own time.

Oh wow, did you know that in the UK there is a game (from what I gather, much like the ‘punch buggy’ thing we have going around where I live) called “Yellow Car” which, according to Wikipedia, involves yelling “Yellow Car” and striking someone close to you on spotting a yellow car. This sounds quite interesting; perhaps I will play this with my friends sometime. Maybe tomorrow during Wednesday Club- they will not know what hit them: literally.

Wow, I just clicked on ‘random article’ on Wikipedia and got turned to this amazing political/social activist/musician named Tom Morello. I looked him up on YouTube and, I must say, thank goodness for Wikipedia.

Also, guys, if you want to seem some truly spectacular videos, do a search for ‘typography’ on YouTube. There are many magnificent music videos and videos on speeches that people have made with typography. I especially love one of The Hush Sound’s “The Lions Roar” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXxouXt5dz4. Ah, typography, how wonderful you are. (Hey, I said this about books the either day, did I not? I am terribly sorry for being so ridiculously repetitive [have I said that before?].)

Ugh, I am getting super mixed up. This post is long enough now.

Good night, good morning, whatever you wish. Please hope that it rains tomorrow.